A Little Quality Time
by unlikelyRLshipper
Summary: Episode insert for 8.03, so spoilers ahead.  Danny and Lindsay finally get to spend some quality time together.  Pure D/L fluff.


**So, hi everybody. I'm sure some of you are more than a little surprised to see me posting a new story after my nearly year-long absence. You may be wondering where the heck I disappeared to – the answer is that I had a hard winter semester in grad school (class-wise) and I've spent about the last 6 months working on the major research paper for my master's degree. Couple that with almost a complete lack of inspiration to write fanfic, and you can kinda see what happened to me.**

**But enough of that, let's talk about the present: My major paper is now completely finished and turned in (no more edits, thank God!) and now I have to find myself a job (not something I really care to think about, but that's another story). Of greater interest, I assume, to you lovely people reading this is the fact that my inspiration is starting to return. After watching the latest episode, a teeny tiny plot started to develop in my head, but I had absolutely no idea where it would go once I sat down and put pen to paper (and yes, I mean that literally!) This fluffy piece is what came out, and let me tell you, I was more than a little surprised about how the story flowed out of me and onto the page before me. And I even liked what I was writing, so that was a definite plus!**

**Alright, I'm going to stop talking for now and just let you read this and hopefully enjoy it! Oh, but before I forget, I'm sending this story out to the lovely and talented rhymenocerous****(seriously, go read her stuff if you already don't, you won't regret it) – Thank you for continuing to believe in me, my friend. *hugs***

**OK everybody, enjoy!**

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><p><strong>A Little Quality Time<strong>

For Lindsay Messer, it seemed as though the day was never going to end. Not that her case was overly taxing or anything. In fact, she found the prospect of a family of car thieves quite intriguing (with one daughter headed for law school instead of the family business, no less), and the high-end cars that they preferred to boost were definitely nicer to process than most of the cars she'd been stuck in for hours at a time. No, the reason why she was so anxious for her day to end was because today, for the first time in close to a month, she and Danny were scheduled to be off work within an hour of each other, and she just wanted to be able to go home and actually share a meal with him.

More often than not, their schedules didn't allow them to meet up for lunch and when they did, like the previous week, something always seemed to come up, leaving both of them frustrated. What made it even worse was the fact that they'd not been seeing much of each other at home either. It always seemed like one of them was getting home from work while the other was heading in, even if they really weren't. Sure, they were still sharing the same bed, but with the number of late nights Danny was pulling because of his new position of authority, she was usually asleep when he came home and she had to leave in the morning before he woke up. Lucy seemed to be doing OK with the change, mostly because her days were preoccupied with preschool and because they tried to make sure one of them was able to be home with Lucy in the evenings, but it was only a couple of nights ago that she was crying at bedtime, wanting both Mommy and Daddy to tuck her in and not just Mommy. A quick phone call to Danny calmed Lucy down enough to get her to sleep, but Lindsay went to bed crying herself, frustrated once again with how her life was at the moment. She didn't blame Danny – on the contrary, she was proud of him and how his choice could further his career – but sometimes, it was just too much for her to bear. Going from spending all day with Danny at work and at home to barely seeing him was a change she was still struggling with even months later.

That night, she fell into a restless slumber, and when she felt his presence beside her, she clung to him and started crying again. He hadn't needed to ask what was wrong, so he just enveloped her in his arms and whispered "It's OK, we're OK, Lucy's OK. We'll figure it out, it'll get better, I promise." She felt better almost immediately and hoped that he was right. It turned out that he might have been onto something, as the very next day when the new schedules came out, both were pleasantly surprised and excited when they figured out that they'd both be home early enough for a late dinner together. It wasn't early enough for the three of them to eat together, but both Lindsay and Danny were willing to take whatever they could get at this point.

Coming back to the present, Lindsay looked up at the clock after letting her mind wander for so long and sighed when she saw that only 5 minutes had passed. She was still stuck in the lab for another hour while Danny was on his way home now to feed Lucy dinner and get her ready for bed. Knowing that thinking about what the rest of her family was doing would only make the time longer, she refocused on her work and tried not to look at the clock every thirty seconds.

In an apparent cosmic scheme to screw with her and her plans a little more, Lindsay's computer decided to crash on her in the middle of typing a report with 20 minutes left in the shift. She nearly threw the monitor across the office in frustration, knowing that she couldn't leave without completing the report and certain that she'd have to retype the whole thing, until she caught Adam heading to the locker room, seemingly on his way home for the night. After pleading with him, and threatening to sick Danny on him, Adam worked his magic and saved her report from its premature grave. Once she'd hugged him, kissed his cheek, and promised to owe him one, Lindsay typed as fast as her fingers would go, managing to finish the report off only 10 minutes after her shift had ended.

Flying out of the lab a couple of minutes later before anyone could ask her to stay a little bit longer, she ran all the way to the subway station and stepped onto the platform just as her train was pulling away. She cursed under her breath and resigned to having to wait another 15 minutes for the next non-express train that would actually stop where she needed to go. When the train finally arrived several minutes behind schedule, she was surprised to find that it was less crowded than usual, but didn't give it another thought as she took a seat. She soon found out why the train was so sparsely populated when it took several minutes for the last door of her car to close. She politely asked another passenger what was going on, and he told her that it had been happening at each stop and that it would close in its own time. Lindsay debated whether she should just take a cab home, but she didn't want to risk getting caught in traffic and being even more late than she already was, so she decided to stick out the 6 stops she had to go through to get home.

When she finally set foot on her station's platform close to 15 minutes after the train should have arrived, Lindsay hurried up the stairs to street level and speedwalked the rest of the way home, putting her keys in her apartment door a little more than an hour later than she'd hoped to be home. She let the annoyance of her day fall away as she stepped over the threshold, at first surprised by the silence and darkness of the apartment. She knew that Lucy had gone to bed a half hour ago, but there was no sign of Danny yet. She quickly secured her gun in the front closet safe, seeing his already there, and quietly made her way into the living room, stopping in her tracks when she found Danny curled up on the couch, asleep.

A part of her didn't want to wake him because he looked so peaceful, but that part was quickly silenced by the need to spend some quality with her husband. Kneeling down by his face without making a sound, Lindsay leaned forward and softly kissed his lips, not unlike how the prince always wakes up his princess in the stories she'd grown up on and the ones they now read to Lucy. She pulled back and watched as his lips curled up into a smile and his eyes fluttered open.

"Why hello there Sleeping Beauty, or should I call you Sleeping Handsome?"

"Babe, when did you get here? I didn't hear you come in."

"I just got here. I'm sorry about that, I got delayed by a computer crashing, a missed train and then a slow one, but honestly none of that matters right now." He smiled at her as he started to sit up. "I wasn't sure if you were here for a second there, it was so quiet and dark."

"Yeah, I had just gotten Lucy to bed and put our dinner back in the oven to keep it warm when I decided to stretch out on the couch for a few minutes while I waited for you. The next thing I remember is waking up to your beautiful face."

Lindsay smiled at the complement and felt herself begin to blush. "Well, I just need to go to the bathroom and look in on Lucy and then we can get to our dinner, OK? These clothes are comfortable enough and I don't want to waste anymore time when I can spend it with you." Lindsay stood up and started to walk away, but was stopped by Danny's hand closing around her own. Turning back to him, she watched as he stood up and closed the gap between them, placing one hand on her hip and the other on her cheek as he guided her lips back to his for a proper 'welcome home' kiss. They both pulled away grinning and he let her go, watching her disappear from his sight with a satisfied grin before heading to the kitchen to retrieve their food.

Lindsay was back sitting beside him within 5 minutes and they ate their meatloaf and baked potatoes in relative silence, stealing glances at each other like they were out on their first date or something. Together they made quick order of their dishes as Danny filled Lindsay in on Lucy's day at preschool and the evening they'd spent together. With nothing else left to do for the night, they made their way over to the couch, Lindsay pressing herself flat against the back of the couch until Danny was lying on his back in front of her and she could drape herself partially on top of him. They remained silent for a few moments, allowing themselves to remember what this felt like, getting to just be a normal couple for a little while before their jobs got in the way again.

Lindsay was the first one to break the silence, filling Danny in on the car thief case, bouncing ideas off him just as they'd done for years working together in the lab. That was one of the things that Danny missed most about his former job, being able to work out a problem by talking it over with someone who knew him well, be it Lindsay or another member of his team. Ever since he became a sergeant, he had to figure it all out by himself, and he was starting to understand more and more the adage that it's lonely at the top.

"How was your day honey?" Danny was slightly caught off guard by the question, but he recovered quickly.

"Nowhere near as exciting as yours, trust me. Let's see, I briefed my rookies on the latest string of car thieves, rode around in several parking garages until I found one of the stolen cars and got a dead body as a bonus, secured a scene for hours for the lab rats…" Danny earned himself a swat on the chest for that crack, which only made him grin widely. "…I filled out an endless stream of paperwork, looked over all the paperwork from my rookies and sent a good chunk of it back to be corrected, chewed out one of my rookies for chasing down a collar that led to more paperwork than it was worth, talked to Mac, and got invited out for a beer, which I gladly turned down to spend time with you."

Out of all the things he had said, Danny knew Lindsay would only hone in on one, and he wasn't disappointed when Lindsay spoke up.

"Who's asking you out for drinks?" Lindsay knew that everyone that Danny would normally go out with – the lab crew and Flack – was still busy working on the car thief case and he mainly kept to himself around the rest of the cops, preferring to focus on being a good leader, so hearing about his invite peaked her interests.

"It was Cooper, the same one I chewed out earlier."

At the mention of the name, Danny saw the brief twinge of jealousy flash in his wife's eyes and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing. There was no chance in hell that Danny had any interest in Cooper. She was too much like his younger self – cocky, stubborn, annoying – but he'd heard how people talked about Cooper when she wasn't around and he knew that Lindsay had too.

For her part, Lindsay knew that Cooper was the rookie that Danny had been riding with for the past week, so she knew that she really shouldn't be surprised that it had been Cooper who invited him out to drinks. It wasn't that Lindsay didn't trust Danny or didn't already know that he was madly in love with her; instead the jealousy came about because Cooper got to spend the day with Danny and Lindsay didn't. Yup, that was it. There was no other reason for her to be jealous. A small voice in the back of Lindsay's mind started laughing and said _"yeah, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Cooper's a young, beautiful woman and that the cops at the precinct never stop talking about her when she's not around."_ Pushing those thoughts off, Lindsay snuck a glance up at Danny and noticed him fighting back a laugh.

"Oh, shut up," she said as she rolled her eyes.

"What, I didn't say anything."

"Well, you were saying nothing very loudly." She pouted and looked away from him, turning her attention to the buttons on Danny's burgundy shirt as her fingers played with them.

"Babe, I'm flattered, is all. You being jealous, unnecessarily I should say, means that you think I'm hot enough to still attract the ladies even as I get closer and closer to middle aged. It's a complement." He couldn't help the chuckle that escaped at the end of his declaration over Lindsay's childish antics, which only earned him a strong poke in his ribs. "Hey, what was that for?"

"I'm glad that you think this is so funny, because it's not."

"Babe…"

She shook her head and continued to keep her focus on his shirt buttons. Danny knew that this little game had gone far enough, so he grew more serious and tried to get her attention again.

"Lindsay…"

When this time she ignored him outright, he knew that he'd have to get her attention another way. Reaching out with his free hand, he placed it under her chin and gently forced her to look him in the eye, noticing that her pout was still firmly in place. They stared at each other for a few second before Danny leaned his head down and crashed his lips on hers in a searing kiss.

Lindsay responded almost immediately, shifting herself up a few inches to bring her closer to Danny's mouth and make kissing him easier. For the next few minutes they continued to make out on the couch, the ferocity of the kiss dying down over time but not the passion the two felt for each other. When they finally broke apart, both were flushed and panting for air, their chests heaving in unison.

"So…why did you…chew Cooper out?"

Glancing down at his wife, Danny saw that her question was born out of genuine curiosity and not out of some leftover jealousy, so he knew that his message had finally gotten through to Lindsay – she was the only woman he was coming home to at the end of the night.

"Oh, she busted a guy for a single joint and I told her that she needed to use better discretion about how to best apply her time and mine. I laid it on a bit thick for her, telling her that because of her choice I might not be able to see you and Lucy tonight, which wasn't exactly true but I wanted her to get my point. After she left I noticed that Mac had been there watching me the whole time. I was so sure that he was gonna chew me out and tell me that I was a horrible boss, but he said that I handled it right. He told me that I was a good boss and that I should just trust my instincts.

"He reminded me about how far I'd come since I first started at the lab and it got me thinking that maybe I was too harsh on Cooper. I caught her just before I left and made sure that she was OK. You know, she reminds me a lot of myself when I was just starting out, trying to prove to everybody that I was worthy of wearing the badge. I told her that she would make a great cop one day and I could see how me saying that changed her, made her more determined to prove me right. That's when she asked if I wanted to join her and some of my other rookies for a drink."

Hearing the true circumstance behind the invite, Lindsay felt her cheeks turn red in embarrassment. She knew that Danny could see it, but he didn't make comments, which she was thankful for. "It sounds like they really look up to you, Dan. I think you should go out with them one night after shift, get to know them a little better."

"Really, you think so?" Danny was more than a little surprised by her response.

"Yes. When I was a rookie, we invited our training officers to come out for drinks with us too. Some of them wouldn't, but the ones who did were the ones learned the most from. Because they took the time to get to know us outside of work, even just a little bit, they figured out how best to get through to us and teach us as individuals and not as a collective, which only helped us become better cops. I still use some of the things that those training officers taught me as a rookie."

Danny nodded his head in understanding. "It sounds like a good idea, Linds, but what about you and Lucy? I already barely see you two as it is."

"Sweetie, go on one of your later nights. Lucy and I are already asleep when you come straight home after shift, so neither of us will know the difference really. And I'm not saying get drunk with them and stumble home after the bar closes. Sit and chat, have a couple of beers, and then let them make fun of you for needing to get home to your wife." Lindsay smiled to herself, feeling good about paying Danny back even just a little bit for earlier.

"Haha, very funny Linds. I already got teased enough at the lab for working with my wife, I don't need the rookies taking the piss outta me too – I still get more than enough of that from you and Flack as it is."

Lindsay reached up and patted Danny's cheek. When his lips pouted out just as hers had earlier, she gave him a soft peck on the lips. "Suck it up buttercup. You know what you were getting when you married me…after you'd already knocked me up. You can't change me now, and you can't get rid of me either."

"I know. And trust me, I don't plan on changing you, or getting rid of you anytime soon." He kissed her sweetly before they lapsed into silence for a few moments, content with just each other's company. It was Danny's voice that eventually broke the silence. "I never thought I'd get to a place like this in my life – a stable family life that I wouldn't give up for anything in the world and a job where people respect me, look up to me, and where I have some say in what happens."

"C'mon Danny, you weren't that bad, even when we first met and you annoyed the hell out of me."

"Trust me, I kinda was. Think of it, in just the year before you came to New York, I pissed Mac off by disobeying a direct order and continuing to work a case he told me to close, the Tanglewood Boys came on the lab's radar and threw some suspicion on my character, I shot an undercover cop and almost went down for it, I was taken off the promotion scale, and I found out that Mac was advised against hiring me. Sure, I started to calm down a bit after that, when you were at the lab that first year, but even that almost came undone when the Tanglewood Boys made a return appearance and I asked you not to tell Mac that my DNA was found on that cigarette butt. I could've taken you down with me too, you know." Danny looked away from her, still ashamed of his actions even years later.

"Maybe, but you didn't Danny. And you can't just blame yourself for that either. I made the choice not to say anything to Mac and come to you first."

Danny seemed undeterred by her argument. "Yeah, but that was only because we were friends. That's why you didn't go to Mac first."

"No, it was for that reason and because I was attracted to you, but none of this has anything to do with my point…"

Danny quickly turned to face her and cut the rest of her sentence off. "Wait, you broke protocol because you were falling for me?"

Lindsay gave him a pointed look in response. "Focus, Messer. My point is that you learned from your mistakes and became an even better cop for it. You're the one who made all this happen for yourself by never giving up. You and I both know that that determination to succeed has been in you all along, you just had to apply it."

Danny let her words sink in before he answered. "That may be true, but you're forgetting something important."

"What?" He confusion was clearly written on her face, so Danny didn't hesitate in responding.

"You. I may have made myself a better cop, but I know that I became a better man because you came into my life. Being with you gave me a glimpse of the life I never thought I wanted. With your help and with your love, I became the husband, the father, the man here before you now – I've never doubted that for a second."

Lindsay could plainly hear the sincerity in his voice and when she met his eyes, the intensity she found in them was too much for her to handle, so she closed her eyes and tightened her grip on him, willing her tears to go away. She wasn't sure how much time had passed when Danny's voice once again broke the silence.

"So…you broke lab protocol because you were crushing on me?"

Lindsay's eyes flew open and looked at him in disbelief. "Seriously? You're not going to let this go until I answer, are you?" He shook his head and grinned widely, clearly eager for her answer. She huffed in frustration and gave in.

"Yes, _part_ of the reason I didn't go to Mac first and thereby broke protocol was because I was attracted to you. Are you happy now?" He beamed at her as he nodded his head. Lindsay just looked at him incredulously. "You never suspected that before? Come on, we kissed at the hospital when you offered to drive me home, and that didn't just come out of nowhere."

"I know, but you kept everything very close to the chest back then, so it's nice to get some confirmation of my suspicions."

Lindsay didn't miss the self-satisfied smirk on his face, so she decided to do a little investigation of her own. "Alright, I knew for certain that I was attracted to you when I broke protocol and didn't think twice about it. When did you know for sure that you were attracted to me?"

"By the end of the tiger case," Danny answered with no hesitation.

"No way!"

"I'm not lying – I knew I was attracted to you by the end of your first case in New York."

"So those first few cases, you were just trying to get into my pants, have me be one of your conquests?"

Danny's face quickly became serious. "I'm not proud of it, but yes."

"Then what changed?"

Danny paused for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. "It wasn't any one thing really. The more time we spent together working cases and the more we got to know each other and become friends, the more I thought about what it would be like to be in a relationship with you and not just sleep with you. By the time Flack was injured and we kissed in the hospital, I couldn't stop thinking about you."

Finally getting what she was looking for, Lindsay stared at Danny as she asked her next question. "So you never were looking for just dinner and a few laughs, were you?"

Danny remembered well that particular conversation. For a while there, that was a unpleasant memory for him, but when he learned the whole story behind Lindsay's reaction, it became a fond memory, the first time that Lindsay admitted that she liked him. "No, I wasn't."

He looked at Lindsay, expecting her to be shocked by his admission, but he was the one in shock when he took in her non-chalant look. "Wait, you've suspected that for a while, haven't you?"

The smirk on her face told him what he needed to know, but she answered anyways. "Danny, someone looking for just dinner and some laughs, they don't fly halfway across the country on the spur of the moment to provide emotional support to someone who's been hiding some things…" She paused to let that sink into his mind before adding "…but , it's nice to get some confirmation of my suspicions."

She was biting her lip to stop herself from giggling but she couldn't hold it in any longer. Soon, Danny joined in, shaking his head at the absurdity of the entire exchange. "So, we've known each other for over 7 years, been married for almost 3 of them, we have a 2½ year old, we used to spend all day with each other, and this is only coming up now?"

Lindsay thought about that for a moment and then replied "Well, we never do do anything in the 'proper' order."

"Ain't that the truth."

Sharing a look, they both started laughing again, and it was several minutes before either stopped. This time, Lindsay was the first to break the silence.

"I'm so happy that we're both here right now, I didn't realize just how much I love spending time with you until we were barely seeing each other."

"I know, I feel the same way Linds, but it's gonna get better, you know that right?"

Lindsay looked him right in the eyes and nodded her head. "Yes I do. Tonight has really driven that home for me. No matter what our work is doing to us, we're still Danny and Lindsay, we're still the same bantering couple who are both crazy about each other and drive each other crazy. That won't change just because we don't spend 24/7 with each other. It's hardly ideal, but we're OK and so is our daughter. The rest will work itself out in time."

"I couldn't have put that better myself." He smiled broadly at her, but the smile faltered a little as he started to fidget on the couch, shaking his legs pretty hard. "Can we please move this 'cuddlefest' to the bedroom? My legs won't take the abuse of this couch anymore."

Lindsay didn't respond right away, but when she did, her voice had taken on a more sultry tone. "If that's what you need, but fair warning, if we head into the bedroom this 'cuddlefest' as you so call it is probably gonna be the last thing on my mind." She smiled shyly at him, her eyes darkening with desire as she started playing with the buttons of his shirt again, undoing the top 2 and slipping her hand inside to run over his warm flesh.

Taking a moment to collect himself, Danny finally responded. "I think I can handle that."

Removing her hand from his body, much to the displeasure of them both, he quickly stood up, ignoring his still-tingling legs and grabbed both her hands to pull her up. Both on their feet once more, they made their way back to their bedroom, leaving a trail of clothing in their wake before finally closing the door.

True to their word, neither thought about their 'cuddlefest' for the rest of the night.

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><p><strong>The end is kinda abrupt, I'll admit it, but I wanted to leave the rest of their night up<strong>** to your imaginations so I hope you don't mind too much!**

**OK, so that's all there is from me today, but you may just see me again soon!**

**As always, thanks for reading! Take care everybody!**

**~ unlikelyRLshipper :)**


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